


Outlands

by Lafeae



Series: Whump/Hurt/Comfort challenge [12]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Blood and Injury, Brotherly Affection, Challenge Response, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 23:06:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18417755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafeae/pseuds/Lafeae
Summary: Seto and Mokuba are brave traders and scavengers in an insipid New World scourged by The Floods. All manner of things lurk in the Outlands, the space in between the settlements where the remaining populace congregate.The bonds of brotherhood are tested in the wake of a monster who attacks Mokuba, but wounds Seto in the process. It soon becomes Mokuba’s turn to be brave as strong for his older brother in an unkind world.—Kaiba Bros, Post-Apoc AU





	Outlands

**Author's Note:**

> This is one I’ve wanted to work on for a while and.... I went a little crazy. 
> 
> For Meew3

People always said to stay away from water. Mokuba never knew why. When he asked, they never explained it to him, especially when he brought up the point that they filled their canteens with water, and that, if they were lucky, they bathed in water.

Seto told him not to go into dark water.

"What's dark water?" Mokuba once asked. 

"If you can't see the bottom. If the top looks like mud," Seto replied.

Mokuba always found himself staring at dark water, though. To see if he could look through it, to see if there was a reason why adults told him not to do things. 'Don't wander at night', 'don't eat the glowing fungus', 'don't climb too high in the trees'.

All things that he was curious about.

There had to be something unexplored in those places, or doing those things. The adults were just afraid of things they didn't know about. But exploring them, learning about them, would make them far less scary.

Or so he believed.

His brother must have believed it too. There weren't too many traders. A half-dozen on one route between settlements, if the weather was nice. It rained a lot, blocked the roads with more dark water. But Seto was brave. Seto and their older friend, Isono. He worked alongside them, pushing the cart to and fro when they discovered new, or new-to-them, because that had existed in the Old World, places to forage for trade-worthy goods. Places like the half-collapsed school building, the letters 'A-C-E', like the card in his complete French deck, were in front of the word ‘school' to let them know. Even if they didn't, in the mud-slid remnants of the cracked open eastern side of the building, they saw old boards with wet paper stuck to them, lockers with missing doors and rusted metal. Mould-eaten posters with aphorisms and well-said words by dead people he didn't know. Mokuba knew Plato, Sun Tzu, and Atwood. Seto like Atwood's work, as well as Rand. But they'd never found any of Ms. Rand's books that were complete.

There weren't many complete books anywhere. Always waterlogged, ripped up, used for fire in the early days when everything was dark, dark, before people re-wired the world and they had flickering bulbs in frosted glass. They lasted all of a few months, and Seto had a backlog of bulbs when every other merchant came knocking.

The school had been hard to get to. Surrounded by a moat of dark water. Before, Seto had wound around it with his hand on his revolver. So did Isono, standing at the cart on watch. He'd fire a warning shot if someone crept from the water. If anything was in the water at all. There was a time when water was beautiful. In the books Mokuba scoured, ocean and rivers and lakes were always painted idyllic, pretty and surreal. A mirror to another world.

"Don't get too caught up in those books," Seto said.

Mokuba closed the novel. "It's not that damaged. I could write in the letters."

"We don't have much ink."

"We can make more," Mokuba said. He slipped off the desk and went over to another shelf, thumbing through the spines. "I can't find Rand. Or Atwood. What about this 'Patterson'. I see a lot of him, was he good?" Mokuba asked. Seto hummed as he surveyed the wide room, a old library with soggy carpet, and shook his head. "Why are there so many?"

"Volume is not a indicator of worth."

"But it is sometimes. Ms. Valentine has good sweet buns. She makes a lot of those."

"She has a sugar cane farm."

Mokuba frowned and opened books. Waterlogged, stained and torn. Incomprehensible, mostly. More ink than they were worth to write, though sometimes he used it for letters practice. Seto always made him practice his letters and numbers until his hand hurt. He wouldn't mind his hand hurting if he could find a complete copy of Rand's books. Any of them. But Seto mostly had _Anthem_ memorised, though he never said from where. His eyes always narrowed when the question came up, and sent Mokuba on some irrelevant errand, though lately, as it happened with age, Mokuba became more curious and pressed. Seto just said he was being a pest, as all brothers were, and Mokuba mocked him back. Eventually, it just came to a simple, "You will understand one day," said forlorn and with no expression. Which meant something, like Seto didn't know, but Seto knew everything.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," Mokuba recited, his thumb under the text. "It was an age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the—the ep...epa...apo..."

"Epoch."

"Epoch of belief, it was the ep—epoch of incredulity."

Seto rounded the corner and picked up a small box, snapping it open and closed before tucking it in his pack. "Put it back."

"What's it mean?"

"It's going to be dark soon, Mokuba. We have to go."

Mokuba laid the open book on his lap. Stiff wind blew the pages through. "What's it mean?"

"Don't take it with you. There's more than enough in your bag, and you'll complain that your feet hurt."

Mokuba stuck out his tongue. "Tell me what it means then."

"You would do better to figure it out yourself."

"But you don't want me to take it." Mokuba slipped off the desk and followed his brother through the rubble, back through the clearest path of thin water and roof-tiles, towards the cart. "So how will I figure it out?"

The book was tucked into the back of his trousers, the best storage spot that, even when Seto unzipped his bag to make sure he hadn't taken what wasn't given to him, that they could keep going.

"You can think about it while we walk."

Think about it, but don't speak. Form your thoughts clearly and intelligently, because the adults were prepared to argue with you about everything, especially prices on the wares. No one wanted to pay full price for convenience. They wanted to price their sacrifice in this New World, pretend that their ever-expanding map of the Outlands to scavenge wasn't their own trade secret that would, one day, reconnect them with other settlements. Seto wanted to engineer a trade route, long and strong, that could cross coast to coast. For the kids, he said. "There's enough of us, we're the backbone of the New World," he said. So they had to form their thoughts clearly.

When he had come up with something, he didn't say. Seto and Isono were taking stock of everything and logging it into a little battery-powered screen that flickered dully, his brother's invention, as well as a moleskin diary.

Mokuba wandered, towards a crescent embankment close to dark water. It was steep, probably twenty feet from bottom to top, and filled with all manner of things. Desks and chairs and shiny instruments like Seto used in his lab. Carefully, Mokuba trekked along the edge, not turning to the dark water, and he found a foothold on a desk and crept up, hanging dirt and rock until he grabbed several of the shiny objects.

Scissors. Nice, almost untouched, with a screw in it. A drafting compass with a spring. Wire frame from an old chemistry set. He swung his pack around and tucked them away. Seto would be a little angry, but proud, that he'd found something so nice.

When he went to climb, he felt the book dislodging itself from his trousers, and he scrambled to hold on. The book fell down, splattering in the mud. Frantic, he slid back down and grabbed the book, flicking off mud. The gold-lettering was a little messy. Still, he checked the inside, page by page.

"Mokuba?" Seto called. Mokuba began to turn, still checking. "Mokuba, Mokuba what are you doing down there? Get away from there." And Seto barrelled towards him, surfing down the clutter and rubbish, jumping the last three feet and stumbling before scooping Mokuba in his arms.

Something lurched from the water and snapped at them. Even from the corner of his eye, Mokuba thought it was fake. A dog growling at them. The surface of the dark water was calm.

"Do you think I'm lying to you?" Seto asked.

"Wha—no I..."

Mokuba was whiplashed left and then right, forced up the steep hillside. He didn't know what he was running from, but his heart ached and it already hurt to breath as he clambered, haphazard and lost, up the side. He kept throwing his head back to see what was snapping and snarling at them, swimming just below the surface of the dark water in a pitch-black, inky spot that, if he saw right, either was a few feet or the entire length of the moat. On a sunless evening, it was impossible to tell.

"Seto—!"

His brother was just below, fighting for footing. Trash loosened itself in the slick mud, and Seto slid down more than once, digging one hand in the mud while pushing Mokuba up with the other, smacking the bottom of his pack. Surely, he would get a lecture for this. His brother's reddened face and glowing blue eyes said so.

At the top, Mokuba struggled to pull his tiny self up and over the lip where it jutted almost a foot further than the rest of the incline. Isono ran over and gripped his arm, pulling him the rest of the way. It was Seto's turn to go, and he reached back, holding out his hand to grab his brother's, touching the fingertips and weakly gripping before, in a blink, Seto thrashed downwards, clamping both hands into the hillside.

He screamed. Loud and bloody, until his voice broke. Until Mokuba covered his ears and clawed at them.

Something had a hold of Seto's leg and pulled, pulled so hard that it could hear the crunching of what had to be bone, though it was more like wood poles of their home breaking in heavy winds, banging their door open and closed all night, until the storm passed. But this was bone.

Something unseemly, unknowingly large and jagged, built of glass and seeping water down its thorny flesh wrapped its sticky tendril around Seto's leg and squeezed. The barbs on its body, what parts Mokuba peered at as he screamed back, begging for Seto to fight, telling him that everything was okay and that he was sorry, so sorry, while trying not to look at the barbs. They were in Seto's leg, draining the blood from his face.

They met eyes, Mokuba and Seto. Clarity filled Seto's face, and he reached for his revolver, taking the chance he wouldn't hold on. He almost didn't, sliding further down and muffling his cries and moans through tight lips, before firing once, _crack!_ down into the pink-blot, semi-triangle that Mokuba called an eye, even though he couldn't see where a head was different from a body. Another _crack!_ of a shot fired into the tendril. The unimaginable mass screeched and dislodged from Seto's leg, slithering down far enough that Seto was able to amble up to the lip of the hill and be pulled over it by Isono.

"Seto. Big brother, I'm so sorry, I—I saw th-these scissors and, and I know y-you wanted screws for your..."Mokuba sucked in a painful breath, two and then three short afterwards, his hands at his mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry...I didn't mean this..."

Seto's breathing was even, but faint. He was inhumanly still, calmly looking over the bloody, uneven juts of leg swelling beneath his trousers. He'd lost his boot.

"We need to move you, sir. I'm going to get you to a tree, we'll treat you and put you on the cart."

"No."

"We have to get you back. We have to remove things, I know, but I can pull the cart."

Seto whined even before he was touched. Shreds of his pant leg were torn open and sheered into pieces. "No..."he grimaced, sucking in sharp breaths, "no, there's too much on the cart, we need t-to take it back."

"You're not thinking right, sir."

Mokuba shivered and threw his pack on the cart before running back. Isono and Seto argued over what to do with the cart while Isono touched the remainders of Seto's leg, moving it about before pulling Seto over his back. "Mokuba, go gather wood. Two or three long branches from the trees over there," Isono said, nodding to the clearing of trees several yards away. Mokuba bolted ahead of them, but kept looking back to the dark water. Still and silent.

From his short distance scouring for thick branches, Mokuba heard his brother cry. Loud and ugly, fighting back screams that were muffled by a glove stuffed in his mouth as Isono handled his leg with swift precision. He'd never said what he was before he'd met them, what he'd apprenticed doing or even if he was First Generation to The Floods. He seemed smart, and Seto trusted him, even to set his leg.

When he returned, tears were streaming down Seto's reddened cheeks. He was covered in sweat, his hair matted to his forehead and shoulders trembling. But he was steely calm, mouth and eyes set forward. The revolver laid in his lap, his trigger finger braced on the side but ready.

Isono measured the branches and snapped them to fit the length of Seto's leg. "Mokuba," Seto whispered, reaching out. Mokuba took his hand, stained crimson and nails clogged with dirt. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah."

"Did you think about it?"

Mokuba's eyes filled with tears. "I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean for this to happen." He wrung his hand in Seto's and tried to be strong. Even if his brother's future suddenly felt bleak. They wandered for a living, they explored and excavated, poked and prodded. It was why they sustained so well. And the community, however blind to it, was going to notice that the Kaiba brothers weren't wandering the Outlands when they needed tools, or wanted glass or plastic, twine or leather. Bullets. "I love you."

Seto's mouth opened but his breath hitched as Isono secured one of the branches, he moved to the other side, forcing Seto's leg straight. He snapped his jaw shut and squeezed Mokuba's hand so tight that his fingers tingled. Fresh tears brimmed, and Mokuba wiped them from both his and Seto's eyes.

"I'm going to grab the alcohol and clean the wounds," Isono said.

"No. Don't waste it."

"It's more important; I need to bind the cuts, too. They'll get infected."

"Don't waste clothe or alcohol. Sell it. The...the cotton sheets go fast."

Isono's brow softened and he went to the cart, rifling through their wares before coming back with several old shirts. From his waist, he pulled a flask and uncapped it, forcing it into Seto's hand after taking the revolver. "Drink. It'll help with the pain. This is my stash, don't worry about selling it," Isono ordered, strong, like a father. He was old enough to be their father, or the grey in his hair said so. Seto drank from the flask. "I'm going to pour it on your wounds and bind them. After...I'll take Master Mokuba back, and I promise we'll return in the morning. Sooner, if possible."

"No!" Mokuba shook his head. "I'm not going back, I-I have to stay with my brother," he hiccuped and wiped his nose. "This is my fault, he protected me. So I'm going to stay here an-and protect him."

A wary air fell between the three. Seto opened his lips to speak, then didn't, while Isono pensively washed Seto's wounds with water first, then alcohol, though they quickly burbled with more blood while he wrapped them in strips of an old shirt. Seto's calf, knee, and thigh were littered with punctures and slashes from a hungry thing trying to eat him, sinking it's teeth and barbs in. The broken skin was porcelain white, with spiderwebs of veiny protrusions snaking outwards. Isono grimaced, but kept binding.

"You may slow me down," Isono said. Mokuba grumbled, but swallowed it as Seto squeezed his hand again. "I can get back to the settlement sooner, alert the surgeon, and come back with help. But we can load you on the cart now, sir," Isono said, addressing Seto, "and be back before the moon's all the way up."

"Go," Seto ordered.

Isono nodded. He left the flask tucked in Seto's lap, and handed his revolver off to Mokuba. "There's two shots left. Don't use them unless you absolutely have to."

"I won't."

"You're in charge of him. You need to take of your brother like he takes care of you. You're a man, now, Master Mokuba." Isono tapped Mokuba's shoulders with the butt of his own revolver. "You understand?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"I know what it means to be a man!" He said, but his rounded shoulders drooped at the sight of Seto's cloudy eyes following them. "I watch you two all the time. I know what I'm doing."

Isono ruffled Mokuba's hair. "I have food, a little bit for the night," he said, taking it from a small bag hanging from the cart. He passed it over, as well as one of the lanterns hanging from the pull-handle. "Keep this warm and lit."

"I know."

"Don't wander."

"I know."

"And if he wants to sleep...keep your hand in his. Listen to everything."

Mokuba frowned. "I know," he said, wary, knowing it was sound advice but pretended that it didn't mean his brother might lose breath or a heartbeat. All the things that could be heard in the silent, wide expanse of the night. "I'll take good care of him. You'd better come back in the morning. With sweet buns, okay? He's gonna be hungry."

"Of course, sir."

Sir. Mokuba's mouth twitched, and he nodded. Isono took off, pulling the heavy cart without a grunt. He disappeared over the hillside.

—

Eventually everything, the trees and the school, the hillside and the dark water, were all shades of black and blue. The horizon line was faint, and at some point Mokuba thought he saw another lantern in the distance. An unlucky wanderer or another caravaner. Maybe the mythical patrol guard that some settlement citizens thought was real, as if it protected them more from the unknown than the high walls they built on dry swaths of land.

Seto slept on and off. Twenty, thirty minutes at time until he shuddered awake. He never said what made him tremble, only hugged Mokuba close until his breath evened out.

"Here," Mokuba offered food after the first hour, tearing apart bread and piling the fat-marbled meat onto it. "It'll make you feel better." Seto didn't protest the offering, but ate little and chose to drink from the flask instead. The pain must have been immense, Mokuba concluded. Nothing knocked his brother down or made him drink, even if it was always offered. But it hurt to look at the wounds, however bound or set. It hurt to think about the creature, the very mind-boggling creature with no structure or face or anything comprehensible, and know that it had hurt his brother. Those were the things no one had warned him about, more than 'stay away from the dark water'.

Maybe Seto hadn't known, or secretly didn't believe.

It became dark and cold. The lantern was pulled close for heat, however little it could provide. As it dimmed, Mokuba relit it with matches. He thought about just burning the book he had chased after, but read pages in the flickering light instead. He was sure Seto knew he was still in possession of it.

"I found something," Mokuba said. "When I was climbing the hill. I...I don't know if it matters. It was just some metal stuff, school supplies. But," he dug out the scissors from his pack, "look. You can use that screw for something right?"

Seto's head lulled to him, and took hold of the scissors in noodly fingers, gripping them tight. It was against the silver that he noticed the blood seeping from Seto's fingertips. Thick globs that had come from where his hand rested in his lap. Leaning closer, pushing the lantern close, one of his bindings was glistening with blood.

"You're bleeding."

"Yes," Seto answered. His very lacklustre expression and occasional, loquacious ramblings earlier made more sense.

Mokuba's lip wobbled. "For how long?"

"A while."

"Seto!" The older brother manuevered to a more comfortable position, dragging his leg along. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's a...venom. It's been making me bleed." Seto unfurled the binding to reveal the series of punctures, like a constellation, dotting his thigh. "It may bleed on the inside, too. There's not much research on them."

"Them?"

"The things in the dark water."

Mokuba tried thinking of something to do, and he dug through the books and different items in his pack, hoping to find something that could close the wound. There was an old stapler, but no staples. A rusted knife. Several pairs of gloves, socks, and a few of his own toiletries from when they made camp. Nothing to seal wounds. Isono had the surgery kit.

"What do we do? It's gonna be hours before Isono gets back," Mokuba said. He kept his voice even timbered, like Seto would when talking to customers, so that the fear didn't come through. Tears prickled anyways, and his fingers shook while holding onto Seto's wrist. And he had an idea, however dark and sad. "We could burn it."

"Mm?"

"Yeah. Like Mr. Crawford's eye," Mokuba said. "Underwood said it wouldn't stop bleeding because of the glass, and so they burned the insides so he didn't die. His eye or his life, you know?"

"I don't think that's true."

"Maybe not, but that's how they do amputations, right? I read that somewhere, in one of my old textbooks. Or, they did it a long time ago when they didn't have anything."

Something twinkled in Seto's dull eyes, and if Mokuba canted his head he saw a proud smile, albeit weak. His mind playing tricks on him between the tears. "Something like that. It's called cauterisation," Seto said. "We'd need a proper tool. Long and flat. Cover most of the wounds in one go."

The scissors were eyed. "I don't want to waste them," he said, showing Seto.

"It's okay,"

"It's not."

Seto sighed. "You're right, it's not. Life's never fair."

"Yeah. Guess you're right. Like always," he said, laughing pitiful and low.

"You have the flathead?" Seto asked. Mokuba dug into his pack again and produced a half-procured toolkit with screwdrivers, a wrench, and a hammer with a broken handle. Seto took one of the screwdrivers and took the scissors, unscrewing them and pocketing the screw. The scissors were in two pieces, and Seto opened the side of the lantern, waiting for the flame to stop flickering, before sticking it in. He carefully cured the piece of metal, pushing it back and forth until it began to glow bright red. "Tell me about what you think."

"What about?"

Seto hummed turning over the piece of metal. "The book you were reading earlier."

"Oh, um..." Mokuba shrugged. He had read page after page but didn't process much. His head hurt from crying, and the words were old-fashioned. "The first lines kind of make sense. It's like, there's two things going on all the time. Not every place is the same."

The metal piece was pulled out, red hot and smoking. Seto widened the space in his pant leg and lowered his shaking hand to it. There were so many things for his brother to be afraid of, no matter how strong and brave. The unfathomable creature was fresh behind Mokuba's eyelids, and he hadn’t been hurt by it. He wasn't sitting with a maimed leg and contemplating the further pain of burning his own flesh in order to survive. This thing had threatened to tear him apart, and he only caught glimpses of it, enough to terrify him into sleeplessness, while Seto looked it in the eye. How would he sleep, maimed and soon burned? All this pain inflicted by Mokuba, who trembled in a pool of guilt.

Life in the New World wasn't easy. Especially not when the braved the Outlands. The chances of them being robbed, starved, killed, attacked, or drowning in deeper-than-they-thought water were numerous. Every so often, there were bodies on the road, young or old, that Seto would turn Mokuba’s face from even though he secretly looked on. They'd gone a long time without being in pain or suffering a gruelling fate. If they could continue to survive, if it meant burning a wound closed, Mokuba resolved that was what they had to do. "I got it," he offered, teeth chattering, stealing the hot metal from his brother. "Warm up the next one, just in case. I...I won't miss."

"You don't have to do this."

"I do. I-I have to make up somehow. I'm a man."

Seto gripped the hem of his coat. The red hot tool came down, gripped tight in Mokuba's hand and kept straight. "Keep talking about the book."

"O-okay." Mokuba clenched his jaw and lowered the tool across three of the four punctures. "There are...there are two cities, obviously, and they're both going through something different at the same time, they," he pressed the tool to the wound. The skin sizzled and reddened. The blood darkened. Seto tore into his coat and nearly dropped the other half of the scissors into the flame when he threw his head back. "They...they are s-sort of, like, having a dual thing. Like, good and bad and, and, and..."

"Go on..."

"Y-Yeah, epoch of light and dark. I haven't met to many characters they, they, th—," Mokuba stuttered so hard he bit his tongue but he focused on the burn. The little holes like covered anthills now, simmered beneath the acrid lump. Seto's muscles spasmed and trembled, and he had raised the flask to his lips but didn't drink. "Seto, are you—?"

"Keep talking."

"Yeah. I...I, there's a guy, he's...going somewhere to deliver a message, I think." Mokuba turned over the blade as it cooled, no longer ready to burn, though he tempted to try. Maybe less fire would cause Seto less pain, less grief, and he would feel a pinch less of guilt, because no number of sleepless nights and or tears would shed the bleeding wounds or a-fix the broken bones. They wouldn't heal his brother quickly, painlessly, leave him without scars, a dragging limp, or whatever else would be cumbersome in the years to come. If those years did come. There was venom in Seto's veins, and while he had his same pallor touched with pained flush, Mokuba couldn't tell what sort of venom this was.

He should have sucked it out. Moreover, he should have taken the brunt of the damage, instead of playing doctor while holding back a wail, taking the second half of the scissors from his brother's bloody palm and searing it against the last puncture wound and a slash nearby. Seto spasmed and moaned, closed lipped, and fell into silence like he'd swallowed his tongue mid-way through. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Mokuba muttered, until Seto's hand cupped the back of his head and pet back the wild strands. "Th-the man was delivering a letter in London, a-about some guy in Paris, the two cities, I guess...I don't know why. They all seem like boring people."

Seto chuckled. "You know why Isono says you're a man?"

"Uh-uh."

"You...want to be responsible."

"I'm afraid."

"We all are." Seto licked his lips and helped Mokuba raise the cooled blade from his skin. Maybe he couldn't feel it anymore, or thought he couldn't feel it, even though there were rivulets of sweat on his brows and tears brimmed in his bloodshot eyes. "We're afraid of the dark."

"There's light. Like back home," Mokuba said. He closed the lantern and moved it away before plowing into Seto's chest. He hugged his brother tight, his eyes above the wound, but he couldn't escape the smell. It made him nauseous. The action had made him nauseous. And Seto had leaned over in that instant and tried to hide his puke on the other side of his arm. The meat and alcohol all gone. There were crackers for later. "I dunno if I'm taking responsibility," he said, trying to pull away from Seto and grab more of the shirt cloth, but he was held under Seto's arm. "I'm sorry. I love you, and I'm sorry."

"You were stupid."

"I know. I saw the stuff and thought you would need it. We're always looking, and I wanted to be more useful than finding books or crawling under shelves." Mokuba handed hooked a small strip of cloth and, after wetting it with the alcohol, he tied it around the wound. "I was stupid to get so close to the water."

"You had to find out the hard way."

"I should have climbed trees instead."

"You do that anyways."

Mokuba smiled and leaned into Seto's shoulder. His voice was weak and wispy, like he would get when he'd stayed awake too many hours chasing down merchants after a long mission in the Outlands, gone for days when Mokuba wasn't allowed with him. Sleep would overtake him soon, and the small thumps of his heartbeat, shallow but present, were enough for Mokuba to miss the screeches and hisses of animals at night. Birds of prey circling overhead, a few varmints skittering in the brush but keeping distant to the light. There was splashing in the water, which woke Mokuba enough to pull the hammer on the gun and raise it.

Seto set his hand over Mokuba's and lowered it. "It won't hurt you up here," he said. He spoke dreamily, his eyes closed. He seemed weirdly happy, in a way that Mokuba couldn't explain. His brother was never happy—merely content.

"Does it stay in the water?"

"We've never seen it on land."

Mokuba curled further into Seto, surveying the distance. The revolver trembled in both hands. "You've seen it before today?"

"Once."

"When?"

Seto's eyes opened. "A long time ago." He let go of Mokuba and searched the ground for something, returning to the warmth of their embrace. It was weird not have someone at his back. At home, Seto and Isono had him sleep between them at night, and he was used to feeling Isono close and rub his back when he had a bad dream. But he was a man. He didn't Isono at his back, and Seto wasn't clutching him to keep him safe. He was clutching Seto, being watchful and mindful of his older brother's wounds. "You were very small."

"Oh."

The book was pressed into Mokuba's hands, the embrace returned. "Go on. Read, if you can't sleep."

"It's hard to read."

"Then read it aloud. We'll get through it together."

"But it's not Rand."

Seto shrugged. His knuckles ran down Mokuba's cheek, and he hugged the smaller boy limply, his strength drained away, before he leaned back. "We'll find her one day. Until then, Dickens will do," Seto sucked in a hard breath. "Go on. Read. Start from the beginning."

Mokuba opened the book. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity."

"Good."

Mokuba smiled, and he continued to read, sinking further into his brother's chest while watching the horizon line. The cart would trundle over the hill soon, empty, and carry Seto to safety. And, being the man that he was, Mokuba would pull the cart with Isono the however many miles it was to the settlement. If he got lucky, he would read the book to Seto while he healed.

For now, he held the book with one hand, flipping pages with his thumb and going slowly, and held Seto's wrist with the other. His thready pulse just a squeeze away.

"I love you," Mokuba murmured when the sun began to crack over the horizon. Isono would be there soon, if things went well. He shook Seto's wrist. "I love you."

Mokuba buried his nose in Seto's jacket and put down the book. His throat was sore from reading, and he'd barely comprehended anything some 150 pages in. Madness. Imprisonment. Some trial. Family. Family he understood, even in the Outlands, in this New World.

They would make it. "I love you, Seto," he said a third time.

"...love you..."

He knew they would.

**Author's Note:**

> The bingo square was ‘Cauterising a wound’ which was not an easy feat. 
> 
> Want an evil whump short? Hit me up on tumblr @lafeae
> 
> Tell me what you think!!


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